


Something Good Can Work

by vensre



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift - Freeform, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 06:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vensre/pseuds/vensre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Any flashback can be pretty rough. Flashbacks propelled by initiating drift between two traumatized people will knock you on your ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Good Can Work

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Two Door Cinema Club song of the same name. No beta today ~ I just got too excited and jumped the gun here. Mako Mori is a badass, and being a beginner lost in a memory doesn't make her a damsel in distress.

It feels horrible when they pull the plug, shredding what's left of the drift as the plasma canon falteringly powers down, but Raleigh's eyes are on Mako and the evidence that she's right there, that she's caught up in the mechanized dream but not gone from his life — not yet. He's almost thinking about it again, but trains the thoughts away. (It takes practice. She'll be good at it someday, if she has enough time.)

Unhooking himself from the relays and harness is second nature. Unhooking her is enough to keep himself busy while proving she's still alive to his other senses. (This isn't going to work. She's already too important.) He warned her about chasing the images because it's hard for everyone, even after the first few times. Raleigh's flashback jarred her out of sync enough to lose the security she should have had from him, she's never had to resist her memories before, and why are there no classes on this? He never thought of it before and doesn't know who'd teach them but he's pissed that they don't exist.

When she wakes up fully at last (the headache obvious in her expression but her eyes clear) he's there. Stacker Pentecost can spend the time being furious and scared and chastising her if that's what he needs to do, but Raleigh is so fucking proud of Mako already, and of what she could become. 

"You did good," he says under his breath, counting on her sharp hearing. 

Mako's head jerks up, and she wince-glares her disbelief. "Don't lie," she mutters back in Japanese.

"Hontou yo. You didn't make the whole rig fall on its face." He's not even embarrassed by the memory anymore, not if it can be useful now.

Her mouth squiggles with buried laughter. He can **see** her understanding, and it's thrilling. "Ohh. Like _you_ did?" She's re-orienting herself by what she learned in the drift already, the tension leaving her face, and Raleigh has the awful, fantastic feeling that he'll probably say anything to lift this person up, to make her feel right. (That's when he knows that this is going to work.)


End file.
